Hopefully everyone is having a great start to 2019! I wanted to share a key point of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) that I noticed that needs to be focused on much more and why it is important. While the last few years marketers have focused heavily on mobile first and content, other basic SEO has become sloppy. More often than not most SEO work that I see on a daily basis focuses on the more traditional technical points of interest like H1, titles, descriptions, xml, etc. when trying to optimize a website.
Google crawlers are smart, but they do need help from content creators to understand the relevance of what the content is and about in relation to a user’s search. As Google and other search engines have evolved to more accurately “know” the intent of the user there are additional technical SEO points that need to be optimized for semantic relevance. What I see most websites are missing or lacking is better schemas and structured data.
Why is spending the tedious time needed to optimize schema important for SEO?
A unified schema structure was derived out of the need for creating commonalities in understanding what different types of information are on the web. Previously different organizations had their own schemas or tags just for their own system when indexing. So as search engines have had to evolve the way they want to see pages organized in their indexes for faster more accurate results. The way technical SEO should be done has followed suit. In essence a common language was put together that optimizers need to be familiar with it. Find it at Schema.org. Content can be identified by these common schema types:
- Businesses & Organizations – make it known that you offer particular services or products. Identify which cities, states or countries. Show your business days, hours of operation and phone number.
- Products – add the description, brand, color, price, specs, and if it’s in stock to name a few.
- Reviews – label the review, date & time, rating and author. Possible to aggregate multiple reviews.
- Video Content – give details about video content on your website. Relay the title, description, length, suggested audience and creator.
- People – who someone is, their profession, personal stats like DOB/DOD, height, weight, and place of birth are some properties used here.
- Events – this type is used for upcoming events. The name, place, time, ticket info, and dates of the show(s).
- Music – used for songs and albums. Links to places to preview or buy tracks.
My favorite example I use to better explain the need for semantic SEO is the not so many ways Eskimos describe snow. We all have probably heard about how Eskimos have 50-100 ways to “say” snow. The truth is Eskimos don’t have many different names for snow. It is because their language is polysynthetic and means their words form from many smaller parts e.g. many words create one word. Examples such as a company named Snow Shop, or a tv character named Jon Snow or a saying such as “don’t eat yellow snow” are considered one word and not a phrase.
Similar to the early search engine algorithms that could not easily identify anytime the word snow is used in a query phrase it would be misrepresented as actual snow. In context there is a depth that a conversation can go depending on the intent of the parties interacting. Part of Google’s algorithm is deciphering user intent based on previous searches + the current search + similar search paths other users did using that same query + geo location + date/time with comparing to the schema tagging of pages in their index. Basically, help make it easier for Google by methodically and thoughtfully optimizing schema.
To further make a point and using the example above about different things that have snow in the name. Let’s say my company the Snow Shop that sells clothing and equipment for skiing, snowboarding and related snow activities in Lake Tahoe, should have the schema properties of a Sporting Good Store on the website. Hopefully any of the many website pages I have show up for a user when searching phrase such as:
- Ski Shop Lake Tahoe
- Snowboards Tahoe
- Snow clothing for sale Lake Tahoe
- Snowboard rental near me (when user is in the Lake Tahoe geo)
- rent ski equipment Tahoe
Most websites I see that do have schema implementation only go to the top level in the schema depth like Place or LocalBusiness. It is important to go as specific as possible when optimizing schema. See the relevancy depth below.
Thing > Place > LocalBusiness > Store > SportingGoodsStore
Structured data for my Snow Shop website should look like this:
| “@context”: | “http://schema.org”, |
| “@type”: | “SportingGoodsStore”, |
| “name”: | “Snow Shop”, |
| “url”: | “https://www.snowshoptahoe.fakesite”, |
| “telephone”: | “(555) 555-5555”, |
| “address”: | { |
| “@type”: | “PostalAddress”, |
| “streetAddress”: | “123 Hwy 50”, |
| “addressLocality”: | “South Lake Tahoe”, |
| “addressRegion”: | “NV”, |
| “postalCode”: | “96150”, |
| “addressCountry”: | “US” |
Search engines don’t stop there. As time has gone on schema has become more refined and is now the foundation for Smart Snippets & JSON-LD.
How does using Smart Snippets and JSON-LD help SEO?
In early 2017 Google adopted smart snippets. Based on schema.org protocols, smart snippets use JSON-LD (JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data) which is built for dynamic database interchanges. Search engines like Google and Bing can now leverage better database efficiency and display more relevant search results using JSON-LD. Think of organizing items like the periodic table of elements. Everything is grouped by relative identifiers then ordered based on priority and significance from other algorithm factors. The SEO advantage for websites using smart snippets is not just helping search engines to better understand your content but also having the ability to connect outside information that further helps semantic understanding. Below is an example of this for a Dr. John Doe in Los Angeles.
| sameAs | http://www.realpatientratings.com/John-Doe |
| sameAs | https://www.realself.com/find/California/Los Angeles/Plastic-Surgeon/John-Doe |
| sameAs | http://www.healthgrades.com/physician/dr-john-doe-3jpkt |
| sameAs | http://www.plasticsurgery.org/md/john-doe-md.html |
| sameAs | https://www.youtube.com/user/johndoe |
| sameAs | https://www.facebook.com/johnplasticsurgery/ |
| sameAs | http://www.yelp.com/biz/doe-aesthetic-plastic-surgery-los-angles |
| sameAs | https://www.angieslist.com/companylist/us/ca/los-angeles/dr-john-doe-aesthetic-plastic-surgery-reviews-2253717.htm |
| sameAs | http://www.patientnow.com/nownotes-dr-john-doe/ |
| sameAs | https://doctorbase.com/blog/dr-john-doe-los-angeles-ca |
I have to point out that using smart snippets to try and game search engine algorithms is not a good idea and is considered against Google policy. Google states “markup on some pages on this site appears to use techniques such as marking up content that is invisible to users, marking up irrelevant or misleading content, and/or other manipulative behavior that violates Google’s Rich Snippet Quality guidelines.”
This is not a new angle or topic when looking to do technical SEO. Whether you are a beginner or tenured optimizer it is understandable that certain areas will fall short with so many things that need to be done. This bit of insight should instill you to regularly put schema and smart snippets on your monthly SEO task list. I know it is on mine!